Communities in Maryport, Whitehaven and Workington are to benefit from dedicated bobbies on the beat.
The Community Beat Officers will be dedicated to understanding and responding to residents’ concerns and issues relating to crime and anti-social behaviour.
PC Catherine Higson began her dedicated role in Workington on November 29. Maryport’s community beat officer, PC Stacy Hucker, started on Monday, with an officer carrying out the same role in Whitehaven starting early in the new year.
Since PC Higson’s introduction 49 hours of foot patrols have been carried out in Workington, resulting in six child-centred policing team referrals, three support and Intervention referrals, one ASBRA (anti-social behaviour risk assessment victim) and three crimes taken on as part of targeted work to address issues in the area.
Man arrested
PC Higson has also conducted a Street Safe survey on John Street, addressing ASB issues across the town and arrested a man for drug offences as well as engaging with 86 stakeholders.
Neighbourhood Policing Team Inspector Rachel Gale said: “In recent years, we have seen dedicated officers, deployed from local areas, especially in rural locations. These officers work alongside our Local Focus neighbourhood policing teams, which consist of dedicated officers and PCSOs who work closely with partner agencies to tackle issues that matter to residents and businesses.
“We are pleased to be able to extend this work further by introducing three Community Beat Officers into Maryport, Workington and Whitehaven.
“These Community Beat Officers will be dedicated, locally-based officers working in these communities, tackling the local issues and supporting the work the local teams are doing to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour. The Allerdale Local Focus team have done a lot of work and undertaken operational initiatives to tackle the local issue of anti-social behaviour which is impacting on local residents, these Community Beat Officers will help build on this work and ensure these issues continue to be addressed.
“They will be visible to local residents, businesses and visitors to the town, being proactive in the areas, speaking to people, understanding their issues and working with them and partners to prevent and detect crime, and tackle anti-social behaviour. This is something we know our communities want, and ask for, and we are pleased we are able to introduce these additional officers as part of the policing team in the area.
“We know from having dedicated local officers in other areas of the county such as Alston, Brampton and Dalton, that this makes a big difference to those communities and we aim to continue to roll this out to other areas of Cumbria as our student officers complete their training.”
Cumbria’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Peter McCall added: “Over the last three years I have been keen to see and deliver improved cover of police officers and Neighbourhood Policing across the county.
“We now have close to 200 additional officers though, many of course are still in training and will take some time to be fully operational. In the meantime, I am encouraged to see even more officers placed into communities to both deliver assurance but also to deal with community concerns and to give even greater capability to our existing neighbourhood policing.
“It is, of course, early days but this is definitely a further move by the constabulary in the right direction and I expect to see more communities benefiting from Community Beat Officers and to feel a positive effect in the near future.”
As of March 31, Cumbria Constabulary had 1,251 police officers, up from 1,238 in 2010.
If you wish to contact Workington or Maryport’s community beat officers, you can do so by reporting information online at www.cumbria.police.uk/report-it. You can engage with and follow the work of PC Higson and the Allerdale Local Focus Team by following their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AllerdalePolice or follow @Allerdalepolice on Twitter.
You also can also sign up to a monthly newsletter for the area by visiting www.cumbria.police.uk/apply-for-it/newsletter.
